Brewery wastewater mainly consists of two streams: 

1. residual substance from production and biological augmentation
2. cleaning of fermentation and storage tanks as well as vat and bottle rinsing

Sludge, often called slurry, dewatering is often the final liquid/solid separation step between breweries and treatment plants.   

Hauling off solids can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Dewatering slurry is a good alternative to costly wastewater hauling, using tanker trucks. Typically, dewatering reduces wastewater haul-off by greater than 90%.   

Using Prime Solution’s Rotary Fan Press, sludge can be efficiently dewatered. The solids removed by the Rotary Fan Press are either landfilled or given to local farms for soil amendment. The filtrate water from the Rotary Fan Press is clean enough to be sent to the local wastewater treatment plant. Clean, low solids filtrate reduces environmental impact and opens the door for further sustainable water recycling. 

Lagunitas Brewery in Petaluma, California, one of the fastest growing craft breweries in the U.S., is utilizing Prime Solution’s Rotary Fan Press as part of their dewatering process and commitment to sustainability.

Lagunitas faced steep economic and environmental costs for dealing with spent process water at their Petaluma facility. One priority was to eliminate the cost of trucking off process water, while also slashing their carbon footprint. Lagunitas leveraged Cambrian Innovations EcoVolt solution to perform on-site wastewater treatment, water reuse, and clean energy recovery.  

Creating a total solutions sustainable process

As part of the water management process, Lagunitas selected Prime Solutions RFP-2.0-36 Dual Skid System to dewater their waste sludge. The Rotary Fan Press provided Lagunitas with a sustainable solution for water reuse, while reducing overall operating costs. Their key selection factors included the following: 

• Reducing environmental impact

     o The system has 7 hp overall, allowing for the lowest energy use for mechanical dewatering   

     o High cake solids of up to 17-plus% and clean filtrate ≥ 95% 

     o Low water use for operation 

• Reducing costs

     o Elimination of hauling costs ≥ $200,000 annually

     o Reduction of polymer use

     o One wear part at a cost of $300 per channel, per 10,000 hours 

     o Startup/shutdown hours equal to 30 minutes   

• Proven technology that is reliable 

     o Minimal or no maintenance to date 

     o Superior support

     o Easily automated 

Bear Republic Brewing Company is a family-owned brewery known for their high-revving IPAs and environmental stewardship. Faced with both water supply and process water discharge limits, they began to explore on-site process water treatment solutions to support their expansion. Additionally, they wanted to reduce the load on the city of Cloverdale’s overworked municipal treatment plant infrastructure. The brewery’s desire to create a sustainable wastewater treatment process led them to Cambrian’s EcoVolt solution. The Cambrian EcoVolt process in turn needed dewatering equipment to assist in maximizing solids removal to support expansion and reduce discharge to the local wastewater treatment plant.  

When sustainability and simplicity are key factors 

Overall plant operations typically look for efficiency and to reduce the cost of operations. In the progressive world of brewing this has been expanded to measuring business operations in terms of sustainability:   

• Environmental sustainability   
• Social sustainability 
• Economic sustainability   

Operators and maintenance look for simplicity:   

• Easy to operate
• Minimal time spent at press 
• Limited downtime 
• Low maintenance time and cost

Technology that fit the best

Prime Solutions RFP-36 Single Skid system’s benefits outweighed the benefits of all other technology. Prime Solution’s fan press satisfied Cambrian and Bear Republic’s needs because of the sustainable attributes and simplicity of design and operation. The sustainability benefits include: 

• Requires less energy - The complete system is only 7 hp, which is much less hp than most mechanical dewatering equipment. 

• Has a smaller footprint - The compact design fits in small spaces, reducing the need for added square footage.   

• Simplicity in design - Easy to maintain and minimal to no maintenance requirements aside of general preventative maintenance reduces cost.   

• Requires less water - Wash and cleanup water requirements are minimal and can be controlled by plant personnel. You can also wash while operating and it does not impact the cake solids or filtrate.  

• Requires little operator time - The simple design allows operators to start the machine up and walk away to focus on other tasks/responsibilities. If process or pressure changes outside of parameters, the machine will shut down to prevent any mess.